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According to the ministry, the reduction of dams would improve conditions for fish migration, so it is planned to demolish one dam and tighten the remaining activities, for example, to introduce fees to owners for the water used.
The Ministry is very unhappy with the Ministry’s plan to revoke the permit for small power plants (up to 10 MW) to use the water pressure created by the dams to generate electricity without paying for water later this year. Vilmantas Tornau, director of the Lithuanian Hydroelectric Energy Association, predicts that such a fee will cost both the owners of hydroelectric plants and the state.
Martynas Nagevičius, president of the Lithuanian Confederation of Renewable Energy Sources, described the Ministry’s plans in the Seimas Environmental Protection Committee as “Belarusian nationalization” and proposed to decide first on the role of dams in the future, and then create a plan on how and how to disassemble them.
The tax will encourage the cessation of operations of hydroelectric plants
At the meeting of the Seimas Environment Committee, Tornau parliamentarians assured that after the government introduced a tax on the use of water, small hydroelectric plants, which now produce about 4 percent. electricity from renewable sources would stop working.
“If there is any tax on natural resources, here we are probably thinking about the use of water, they would probably put a cross on the hydroelectric plants and these 100 facilities would probably close because it would probably not be worth working under market conditions. Now the price of electricity is not high. You would simply cut the branch you are sitting on, because the power plants that rent dams pay high rents to the municipalities, ”he explained.
Tornau predicts that hundreds of jobs will also be lost in the country’s regions, with tax losses of up to 3 million a year. euros.
According to V. Tornau, hydroelectric plants are now installed on 96 dams. According to him, the owners of the hydroelectric plants near the dams are not against the construction of fishing passes, but they want to take into account how this will change the economic indicators of the entrepreneurs who produce electricity here.
“If power plants lose some of their revenue, you could get it back by operating fish streams, because they still need maintenance,” Tornau said.
M. Nagevičius is convinced that before preparing amendments to the laws, it is necessary to decide whether Lithuania needs hydropower in general, or whether only solar and wind power should be developed.
He believes that the fate of small hydroelectric plants and dams should be decided not only by non-governmental organizations and the Ministry of the Environment, but also by the Ministry of Energy with the municipality.
“Arguments are used that produce little electricity (hydroelectric sector – BNS), so let’s build more solar power plants, but let’s not replace hydropower with solar power,” the energy expert told the committee.
Dam reform
Not only does the Environment Ministry intend to tax the water used by the hydroelectric plant near the dams, it has also started to clarify which dams are worth demolishing completely and at what rate, as their dismantling would improve conditions. for fish migration.
According to the SNB, the Environment Ministry is currently organizing a public tender for the purchase of a dam evaluation study that will last for one year. It will cost about 82.6 thousand. euros
Jonė Leščinskaitė, Chief Specialist of the Ministry’s Strategic Change Group, pointed out that the aim of such analysis is to systematize data not only on all the dams in Lithuania, but also on the remains and thresholds of the dams.
“The study will help decision-makers to prepare plans for restoring the integrity of the river for the coming year and a preliminary estimate of the costs required for the reconstruction and dismantling of the dams,” J. Leščinskaitė told BNS.
Agnė Kniežaitė-Gofmanienė, Senior Advisor to the Pollution Prevention Policy Group of the Ministry of Environment, in the field of dam demolition, offers Lithuania to join Estonia, where 120 dams have been demolished.
“It could be an example for Lithuania in the field of liberalization of fish migration routes,” stated A. Kniežaitė-Gofmanė at the Environmental Protection Committee.
According to her, dismantling dams is 10 to 30 times cheaper than financing their maintenance annually.
According to A.Kniežaitė-Gofmanė’s calculations, there are now 1225 dams in Lithuania, another 300 – unregistered. According to her, a third of these dams are possibly threatened by their unsatisfactory condition: most of them were built in the Soviet era and no longer fulfill their original function, and their maintenance is expensive.
The fate of the Anykščiai dam
According to J.Leščinskaitė, the Anykščiai dam is one of those whose dismantling would be especially useful. According to her, so far the dam has not been closed for various reasons: the decision was made hastily, the local community lacked information, coordination with it, so they resisted.
Martynas Mančas, representative of “Salmon Diary”, says that the demolition of one dam in Anykščiai would be larger than the demolition of 10 smaller ones.
“It would cost absolutely nothing to open it, because there would be no demolition work, all you have to do is lower the shields, place them at the bottom, and the benefits would be huge, because the dam separates the largest area of Fish in Lithuania, probably after Kaunas HPP “, explained M. Mančas in the committee.
According to him, the fish migration corridor in Šventoji would be extended by up to 67 kilometers. Another 50 kilometers would contribute to the main tributaries and 24 kilometers to the smaller ones.
BNS previously wrote that the Salantai dam has already been decided and will be demolished. The Bražuolė Dam was the first dam to be dismantled in the country for nature conservation purposes.
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